Our mission is to offer a dignified alternative to dying alone on the street for those with terminal illness.
For our Denver-area neighbors without a home, we provide a comfortable place to live during their last days. Our staff and volunteers offer basic care like help with laundry, cleaning, and companionship. Our hospice agency partners provide skilled nursing & physician services, and medical equipment.
We are a nonsectarian 501(c)3 offering shelter for end-of-life care regardless of a person's race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status.
Rocky Mountain Refuge is a member of Omega Home Network, a national organization that promotes the development and expansion of community homes for dying people.
On July 1, we received our newest resident, back in our usual rooms at Denver Rescue Mission's The Crossing.
As soon as we informed our hospice partners that we were open, we immediately had three residents ready for our three available beds!
We’re so thankful for each of you and for all of the ways that you show faithful support to this project and the people we serve.
Our community support from partner organizations, donations, and grants has been truly heartening!
We are creating agreements with area hospitals under which they can pay per diem for their patients that we care for.
This is more economical than continued hospital stays, and provides a better, more appropriate setting for end-of-life care.
This will stabilize our finances in combination with ongoing grants and donations.
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church has an unused parsonage they want to put in service for unhoused neighbors.
"Peace House" can be a permanent, expanded location for Rocky Mountain Refuge.
We expect The Peace House project to take 18-24 months to finalize. When we are open there we can have 5-6 beds available instead of the 3 we have now.
Many people experiencing homelessness at the end of life are still quite capable of taking care of themselves. They don’t need or want full-time care. But they have nowhere to store their medications securely or meet privately with hospice nursing staff.
We are developing a new "Continuum of Care" model with local shelters and hospice partners. With a dedicated room in a shelter, folks can self-care while supported by their hospice agency. When they need full-time care, Rocky Mountain Refuge will be there for them.
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There's some good stuff to dig up in the archive.
Woof!
"Colorado veterans go through hundreds of unclaimed cremated remains to give comrades a dignified memorial"
Our resident, Daniel, was one of the veterans buried with honors at Ft. Logan. Brother JP Hall, our Executive Director, served as chaplain for the ceremony.
Daniel loved root beer floats!
"Providing Refuge: Hospice Care for the Unhoused"
Brother JP Hall, our Executive Director, wrote this article for this CREJ's section focusing on Affordable Housing.
Through a generous arrangement with the Denver Rescue Mission, we have moved in to two rooms at The Crossing on Smith Road.
“Jim” was a regular guest at the day shelter where I was working. He was a pleasant guy, a Vietnam veteran in his 70s and a fixture in the homeless community—one of those guys everyone knows and everyone seems to like.
I had a fair amount of contact with Jim. He always had some material need he was hoping to have fulfilled by the shelter. Usually there wasn’t much I could do for him, but he was fun to talk to and he seemed to need a listening ear as much as anything.
He was a frequent flier at the nearby hospital where they’d check him in for an afternoon or maybe overnight and check him out in basically the same state he was in before his visit.
One morning a couple of Jim’s friends came in and said they found him dead by his cart on the side of the road not far from the overpass where they camped. It wasn’t a surprise but it was still a tragedy. Jim saw death coming for him.
Jim died with dignity because he lived with dignity. But he deserved to die in a bed, with a blanket over his body, a roof over his head, and someone to care for his hurts and listen to his fears. But without a place for that care to be given, Jim died in the place he knew best: on the side of the road, next to his cart, alone.
We owe it to Jim to do better for people like him, who deserve the same care Jim deserved, the same care all of us deserve at the end of our life.
Logan Robinson, Pastor/Director, AfterHours Denver
Copyright © 2019-2024 Lazarus Gate dba Rocky Mountain Refuge for End of Life Care - All Rights Reserved.
Rocky Mountain Refuge for End of Life Care is a Colorado Non-Profit Corporation offering shelter for end-of-life care regardless of a person's race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status.
Federal 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, Tax ID #83-3159392
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